Part 9

Of course Rain in California is spelled with a capital R. Noah spelled it that way, but we didn't before we came West. It swells the streams, which in summer are nothing but trickles, to rushing torrents in no time. Bridges snap like twigs, dams burst, telegraph lines collapse; rivers even change their courses entirely, if they feel like it, so that it would really be a good idea to build extra bridges wherever it seemed that a temperamental river might decide to go. I have heard of a farmer who wrote to one of the railroads, saying, "Will you please come and take your bridge away from my bean-field? I want to begin ploughing."

This adds natural hazards to the real-estate game. There are others--Fire, as I said a moment ago. I have a very profound respect for the elements since we have come West to live. A forest fire is even more terrifying than a flood, and in spite of the eagle eyes of the foresters many are the lovely green slopes burned over each year. I have seen a brush fire marching over a hill across the canyon from us, like an army with banners--flying our colors of orange and yellow--driving terrified rabbits and snakes ahead of it, and fought with the fervor of Crusaders by the property owners in its path.

The very impulsiveness of the climate seems to give the most wonderful results in the way of vegetables and fruit. Around Pasadena there are acres and acres of truck gardens, developed with Japanese efficiency. I love al fresco marketing. If I can find time once a week to motor up the valley and fill the machine with beautiful, crisp, fresh green things of all kinds, it makes housekeeping a pleasure. The little Japanese women are so smiling and pleasant, with their "Good-by, come gen," the melons are so luscious, the eternal strawberry so ripe and red, the orange blossom honey so delectable, and everything is so cheap compared to what we had been used to in the East! I think that in San Diego one can live better on a small income than anywhere in the country. Once some intimate friends of ours gave us a dinner there in January that could not have been surpassed in New York. The menu included all the delicacies in season and out of season, fresh mushrooms, alligator pears and pheasants. J---- and I looked at one another in mingled enjoyment and dismay that so much was being done for us. Finally our host could not help telling us how much for each person this wonderful meal was costing, including some very fetching drinks called "pink skirts." You wouldn't believe me if I told how little!

One more delicacy of which we make rather a specialty: I should call it a climate sandwich. If you live in the invigorating air of the foothills, to motor to the sea, a run of some thirty miles from where we live in winter, spend several hours on the sand, and before dark turn "Home to Our Mountains" gives a mountain air sandwich with sea-breeze filling--a singularly refreshing and satisfying dainty.

Perhaps my enthusiasm for California sounds a little like cupboard love. There is a certain type of magazine which publishes the most alluring pictures of food, salads and desserts, even a table with the implements laid out ready for canning peaches, that holds a fatal fascination for me. I have even noticed J---- looking at one with interest. When my father comes out to visit us every spring, the truck gardens, the packing houses, and the cost of living here, I think, affect him in much the same way that those magazines do me, and I wonder if every one, except a dyspeptic, doesn't secretly like to hear and see these very things! Could it be the reason people used to paint so much still life?--baskets of fruit, a hunter's game-bag, a divided melon, etc. I frankly own that they would thrill me more if I knew their market price, so that I might be imagining what delightful meals I could offer my family without straining the household purse, which is my excuse for the intimate details concerning food and prices which I have given.

Surely human beings ought to respond as the fruits do to this climate, in spirit as well as in body, and become a very mellow, amiable, sweet-tempered lot of people, and I think they do. Even the "culls" are almost as good as the rest, though they won't bear transportation. It is the land of the second chance, of dreams come true, of freshness and opportunity, of the wideness of out-of-doors--"Sunkist!"

THE END